Advertising and Sponsorship Policy

1. Status of this policy

Arogya Prana does not currently serve advertising and does not currently accept sponsorship. There are no ad units, ad networks, advertising cookies, or advertising pixels on the platform today.

This policy is published in advance so that our rules are known before any such feature exists. Every rule below applies if and when we introduce advertising or sponsored placement. If we launch either, we will update this policy with the operational detail and notify users before the change takes effect.

This policy sits alongside our Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy, and Medical Advice Disclaimer. Accepting our Terms does not create any advertising consent — see Section 7.

2. Who this applies to

• Advertisers and sponsors, including doctors, clinics, hospitals, and non-healthcare businesses that may in future pay for placement.
• Users, who are entitled to know what is paid for and what is not.
• Us, as the operator responsible for what appears on the platform.

3. Labelling and the absence of endorsement

1. Every paid placement will carry a clear, prominent, and plainly worded label — such as "Ad", "Advertisement", or "Sponsored" — visible at the point of display and not hidden behind a hover, tooltip, or collapsed panel.
2. A paid placement will be visually distinct from organic search results, provider listings, editorial articles, and reviews, so that a reader can tell at a glance which is which.
3. Sponsored placement is not a recommendation. Arogya Prana does not endorse, vouch for, or clinically recommend any advertiser, and an advertisement must not state or imply that it does.
4. An advertisement must not be styled to imitate an organic search result, a verification badge, a platform notification, a system message, or editorial content.
5. Paid placement will not be presented in a way that suggests it reflects clinical quality, patient outcomes, or a ranking earned on merit.

4. Separation from verification, moderation, editorial and ranking

This separation is the core commitment of this policy.

1. Payment never buys verification, and never influences a verification outcome. Verification is decided only on the evidence submitted and the checks described in our doctor and provider terms. Advertising spend is not a factor, and an advertiser has no route to influence a verification decision.
2. Payment does not influence moderation. Reviews, reports, takedowns, and content decisions are handled on their merits. An advertiser cannot buy the removal of a lawful review or the suppression of a competitor.
3. Payment does not influence organic ranking. Organic search results and listing order are produced by our ranking logic independently of advertising relationships. Paid visibility, if introduced, is delivered only through separately labelled placements.
4. Payment does not influence editorial content. Health articles and their review process are kept separate from any commercial relationship. An advertiser has no right of approval, pre-publication review, or veto over editorial content, and sponsorship of a content area will not permit an advertiser to write, direct, or amend clinical material.
5. An independently verified advertiser may continue to display its verification badge on its own listing, because it earned that badge through verification. However, the advertisement itself must not present the badge as a paid endorsement, must not suggest that Arogya Prana recommends the advertiser, and must not imply that the badge was obtained through, or is connected to, the payment.
6. Staff responsible for verification and moderation decisions are not compensated on advertising revenue.

5. Advertiser eligibility and responsibility

An advertiser is responsible for its own advertisement. By advertising on the platform, an advertiser confirms that:

• it holds every registration, licence, permission, and qualification required under Indian law for the goods or services advertised, and that these remain current;
• the advertisement, the creative, and the landing page are lawful, accurate, and not misleading, and comply with applicable Indian advertising law and any professional or sectoral advertising restrictions that apply to it, including restrictions applicable to registered medical practitioners;
• it holds adequate substantiation for every factual and health-related claim made, and will produce that substantiation to us on request;
• it holds the necessary rights to all content used, including images, patient material, trade marks, and testimonials, and has obtained any consent required from an identifiable individual; and
• it will keep the advertisement and landing page accurate and will withdraw them promptly if they cease to be so.

The advertiser is responsible for the content of its landing page and for any claim made there, to the same standard as the advertisement itself.

6. Prohibited and restricted advertising

We will reject, and may remove at any time, advertising that falls into the categories below. This list is a minimum standard for India and is not exhaustive.

6.1 Health claims

• Unlawful, deceptive, exaggerated, or unsubstantiated health claims.
• Guaranteed cures, guaranteed results, or guaranteed recovery, and claims of assured success rates that cannot be substantiated.
• Before-and-after representations that are unsubstantiated, unrepresentative, digitally altered without disclosure, or presented without material context.
• Testimonials presented as typical outcomes where they are not, and paid or incentivised testimonials that are not disclosed.
• Claims that a product or service can prevent, diagnose, cure, or treat a disease where that claim is prohibited or unsupported, including claims restricted under the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and rules made under them.
• Advertising that discourages a person from seeking care from a registered medical practitioner, or that promotes delaying necessary treatment.

6.2 Categorically prohibited inventory

• Tobacco products, and any direct or surrogate promotion of tobacco, contrary to the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 (COTPA).
• Advertising of prenatal sex determination or sex selection, which is prohibited by the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 (PCPNDT).
• Commercial surrogacy and any advertisement prohibited under the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021.
• Any trade, sale, purchase, or solicitation involving human organs or tissues, which is prohibited under the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994.
• Sale of prescription medicines or scheduled drugs outside the lawful channel, and any unlicensed pharmacy or unlicensed diagnostic service.
• Any product, service, or practice that is otherwise illegal in India, and any advertising that violates applicable guidelines of the Central Consumer Protection Authority on misleading advertisements and endorsements, including its guidance on surrogate advertising and on disclosure by endorsers.
• Content that is unlawful under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and rules made under it, or that is obscene, defamatory, discriminatory, or hateful.

6.3 What is not prohibited

Lawful advertising by a registered Indian healthcare provider is not banned by this policy. A registered doctor, clinic, hospital, laboratory, or pharmacy may advertise where it is lawful for it to do so, provided it holds the required registration and licences, observes any professional advertising restrictions applicable to it, and makes only accurate and substantiated claims. This policy restricts unlawful and misleading advertising, not legitimate practice information.

7. Advertising, personal data, and health information

Our data commitments in the Privacy Policy govern here, and this section adds to them.

1. No advertiser collects personal data through an ad unit without our prior written approval and any separately required informed consent. Without that approval, an ad unit may not contain a form, lead-capture field, cookie, pixel, tag, web beacon, fingerprinting script, or other tracking technology.
2. No advertiser receives your health searches, the conditions or specialties you look for, or any inferred health condition. We do not disclose your query to an advertiser and we do not sell personal data.
3. Contextual selection is permitted. An advertisement may be selected from the page or category you are currently viewing. That is a decision about the page, not about you: it does not persist your activity into a behavioural or health-interest profile, is not retained as a profile attribute, and does not disclose your search or the page you viewed to the advertiser.
4. Personalised advertising requires separate opt-in consent. It may use only data you have separately consented to for that purpose and that is permitted for that purpose. It will never use health conditions, inferred health conditions, or searches for a specialty, treatment, or provider.
5. The personalised advertising control is off by default, never pre-checked, and never bundled with accepting our Terms, creating an account, submitting an application, or using any feature. Declining costs you nothing. You may withdraw it at any time, as easily as you gave it, from your privacy settings.
6. We will not serve personalised advertising to users under 18, and will not undertake tracking or targeted advertising directed at children, consistent with Section 9 of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.

8. Third-party landing pages

An advertisement will usually link to a website we do not operate. Those sites have their own terms and privacy policies, and our policies do not apply to them. Clicking an advertisement is not an endorsement by us of the destination site, its operator, or anything offered there. Please read the destination's own terms before sharing information or making a purchase.

9. Review, rejection, and withdrawal

1. We may review any advertisement or sponsorship before or after it appears, and may require changes.
2. We may decline, pause, or withdraw any advertisement or sponsorship at our discretion, including where it breaches this policy or applicable law, where a required registration or licence lapses, where a claim cannot be substantiated, or where continued display would risk harm to users. We will tell the advertiser the reason.
3. Acceptance of an advertisement is not a statement that we have verified every claim in it or on its landing page. Responsibility for the advertisement remains with the advertiser.
4. Nothing in this policy obliges us to carry any advertisement.

10. Complaints

If you believe an advertisement or sponsored placement on the platform is misleading, unlawful, unlabelled, or otherwise in breach of this policy, contact our Grievance Officer at support@arogyaprana.com. We will acknowledge and handle the complaint within the timeline applicable to its subject, and will tell you the outcome.

11. Relationship to our other policies

• Privacy Policy — what data we process, and the consent and withdrawal standards that apply.
• Terms and Conditions — the agreement governing use of the platform; doctor and provider terms also bind advertisers from those audiences to this policy.
• Medical Advice Disclaimer — platform content, including any advertisement, is not medical advice and is not a clinical endorsement.

Where a doctor, clinic, or hospital participates in advertising or sponsored placement, that participation is also subject to their respective terms.

12. Changes

We may update this policy, and will do so before introducing advertising or sponsorship. Material changes will be notified clearly. A change to this policy does not by itself switch on any optional consent.

13. Contact

Questions about this policy may be sent to support@arogyaprana.com. Publication of this policy does not guarantee that any particular advertisement complies with law; advertisers remain responsible for their content and landing pages.